mac vs. pc...

Once upon a time, I worked for the Navy, and in 1984 or 1985 we had occasion to select a computer platform for technicians to use for day to day work in the repair depot. We brought in the two major vendors at the time, Apple and IBM, to show off their best computers. Apple showed us the Macintosh Plus. IBM showed us an AT. We asked that they leave the machines behind for us to trial, and each did so freely. While impressed with the GUI of the Mac, we did not yet understand how revolutionary it truly was. We were more interested in the hardware. So once the sales from both companies were gone, we cracked open the cases and looked at the only thing we thought mattered at the time. What did we find... the Mac was a work of art all the way down to the signatures embedded into the cast die that produced the shell... the AT... well the thing I remember most was the stitch wire on the mother board. Yes, stitch wire... guess they had a bug after the production line was fixed. We had to convince our superiors which company to start a long term relationship with. We mentioned the GUI, and got a response that a computerized Etch-A-Sketch was not needed. They too did not see the revolution in front of them. But the stitch wire was like a bomb going off in the room. What?! "You mean to tell me, IBM can't build computers without altering them by hand before shipping?" We bought the Macs. I've used them ever since. I have used PCs with Windoze, PCs with Linux, Sun with Solaris, HP with MPE, IBM mainframes running something (I can't remember), but I always also use a Mac. The interior of my G5 is still a work of art, but now I've come to understand that the OS is also a work of art. Windoze, whether influenced by the hardware or by it own sloppiness, also still requires stitch wire. What good is a PC with Windoze if you don't immediately install some sort of virus/malware protection software? Why, oh why, isn't this part of the design? Will it be in Vista? I doubt it. They are too busy making folders with thumb nails of its contents, while the real flaws are left to stitch wire.

the swing...

I haven't written anything in months... I'll see if I can get back into the swing.